Google Has Cracked AirDrop Open, And You Have EU To Thank For

Last updated: November 24, 2025 2:40 am

4 Min Read

Hell has frozen over: Google announced it has managed to crack open the proverbial walled garden of AirDrop, which is Apple’s peer-to-peer file sharing feature that, since its inception, has never allowed any non-Apple device from utilizing quick file transfers to and from iPhones and iPads. Of course, none of credit goes to Apple, but all of the credit also doesn’t go to Google either – just like USB-C, you have EU to thank for this breakthrough.

Finally, AirDrop Works On Android

Google Has Cracked AirDrop Open, And You Have EU To Thank For — Image: Google

While Google already provided Android with an AirDrop-equivalent feature in the form of Quick Share (with most Android devices retroactively supporting this feature), the limitation remained that any Android device still couldn’t share or receive files from iPhones and iPads. Starting with Pixel 10 series, the software giant announced that Android users will now be able to do exactly as such, with more models set to be supported down the line. To start sharing, both sides are required to set their respective features discoverable to everyone, then the transfer can begin.

Google also made mentions that this implementation did not involve any workarounds, and it confirmed to The Verge that Apple did not contribute to this development. Would Apple actively block this compatibility? Unlikely – in fact, it has pre-emptively struck down any chances of this happening should Cupertino choose to block this feature on security grounds, as its blog has shown the inner workings of Quick Share’s security layer, involving the memory-safe “Rust” programming language that inherently prevents memory-related exploits.

While Google solved the technical side of things, credit must go to EU – specifically, the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) – that enabled the possibility in the first place. As this blog from cloud services company Ditto explained (via Ars Technica), there was indeed a technical reason why AirDrop was off-limits for anything outside Apple: these devices relied on a proprietary wireless protocol called Apple Wireless Direct Link (AWDL), but DMA forced Apple to adopt the industry-standard alternative called Wi-Fi Aware (also called Neighbor Awareness Networking, or NAN for short), which is a feature that Apple itself contributed many years ago.

The law stipulates that Apple must support Wi-Fi Aware starting with iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 (though macOS 26 was exempted likely due to itself not designated by DMA as a “gatekeeper” operating system); simultaneously, AWDL must be deprecated, and feature parity must be ensured so iPhones and iPads do not get preferential treatment over Android devices. In a way, this is a similar story with USB-C implementation on iPhones – Lighting was developed, Apple contributed to the creation of USB-C standard, decided to stuck with Lighting for years to come, and was forced to deprecate it due to EU regulation.

Just like Quick Share was retroactively implemented to Android smartphones, it is likely that the same will happen in terms of interoperability with Apple devices. Since Android 8.0, Google has quietly implemented Wi-Fi Aware into the operating system, so theoretically it is possible that virtually all Android devices in circulation today will support this feature down the line.

Pokdepinion: EU wins a big one for consumers, again.